Sacramento State Professor Preserves First Chinese American Indie Film

"The Curse of Quon Gwon" is the earliest example of Chinese American independent film known to exist today. Marion Wong wrote and directed the film in 1916 with the Mandarin Film Company in Oakland, California. This was a time when Chinese Americans were a persecuted minority in the United States and non-white people didn’t appear in films. Gregory Mark’s grandmother, Violet Wong, is the star of the silent movie. She tasked him with preserving it in 1969 and, since then, the Sacramento State professor of ethnic studies has digitized the film and filed it with the Academy Film Archive. He is showing the film Oct. 29 at Sacramento State University.